Tullian Tchividjian Quotes

There are a still lot of people in today's church who can easily identify the idolatry outside the church and are pretty proud of the fact that they are not like them. And yet, we are far too slow to recognize the idolatry inside the church and more painfully, the idolatry inside our hearts.

Whatever we may mean by 'Christian growth,' it is ultimately this: less faith in me, more faith in God.

Every time we sin in thought, word, or deed, we're essentially saying in that moment that, "I don't need you God. I don't want you God. I like my way better than your way."

Graciousness is the fruit of someone who knows how badly they themselves need grace.

God's capacity to forgive is greater than our capacity to sin; while our sin reaches far, God's grace reaches farther. It's a message revealing the radical contrast between the sinful heart of mankind and the gracious heart of mankind's Creator.

Real, pure, unadulterated freedom happens when the resources of the gospel smash any sense of need to secure for myself anything beyond what Christ has already secured for me.

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

Sometimes God has to remind you that you're weak so that you can be set free from your "self-sufficiency."

Our hearts are continuously rebellious. Every time we sin in thought, word, or deed, we're essentially saying in that moment that, "I don't need you God. I don't want you God. I like my way better than your way." If this goes on day after day after day, year after year, month after month, it would understandable for God to say, "I've given you ten trillion tries. You're finished." But it's not. So in that sense, His grace is always surprising, never ceases to be amazing and His mercy is remarkably outrageous.

God reminds us again and again that things between He and us are forever fixed. They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has been paid, the ledger put away, and that everything we need, in Christ we already possess. This re-convincing produces humility, because we realize that our needs are fulfilled. We don’t have to worry about ourselves anymore. This in turn frees us to stop looking out for what we think we need and liberates us to love our neighbor by looking out for what they need.

My struggle isn't believing my performance can earn God's favor; my struggle is believing my performance can keep God's favor

Because Jesus was strong for us we are free to be weak.

There's absolutely no way you can feel the freedom to embarrass and humiliate yourself unless you have finally recognized that your identity is in someone other than yourself.

You can be sure that your deepest desires reveal important truths about your spiritual condition.

God's grace meets us in messy places because messy places are all that there are.

Even political insiders recognize that years of political effort on behalf of Evangelical Christians have generated little cultural gain.

The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be.

I enjoy receiving love from my wife. I'm ecstatic when Kim loves me and expresses affection toward me. Something in me comes alive when she does that. But I've learned this freeing truth: I don't need that love, because in Jesus, I receive all the love I need.

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace.

The people who tend to be the most gracious are those who know how badly they need grace

Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable.

We make a big mistake when we conclude that the law is the answer to bad behavior. In fact, the law alone stirs up more of such behavior. People get worse, not better, when you lay down the law. To be sure, the Spirit does use both God's law and God's gospel in our sanctification. But the law and the gospel do very different things.

Mt. Sinai says, 'You must do. Mt. Calvary says, 'Because you couldn't, Jesus did.' Don't run to the wrong mountain for your hiding place

The world isn't scandalized by our freedom but by our fakeness.

Nothing makes me want to obey more than knowing that God unconditionally loves me and forgives me even when I disobey.

Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it intuitively difficult not to put conditions on grace.

God is inviting you today to appropriately grieve your pains and losses and to acknowledge the world is seriously broken.

Long-term, gospel-motivate d obedience can only come from the grace of what Jesus has already done, not the guilt of what we must do.

The law is God's first word; the gospel is God's final word.

When the Christian faith becomes defined by who we are and what we do and not by who Christ is and what he did for us, we miss the gospel - and we, ironically, become more disobedient.

The gospel is not about a lifestyle that we live, it's about the law-fulfilling life that Christ lived.

Disobedience happens not when we think too much grace but when we think too little of it

Unfulfilled dreams, ongoing relational tension, the loss of friendships, a hard marriage, rebellious teenagers, the death of loved ones, remaining sinful patterns - whatever it is for you - live long enough, lose enough, suffer enough, and the idealism of youth fades, leaving behind the reality of life in a broken world as a broken person.

The gospel brings things together. One of the great demonstration of the gospel's power is reconciliation. I've got friends who are surfers, doctors, lawyers, artists and entertainers. Some people are cool and some people are geeky. I look around at my friends and I think, only the gospel has the power to put together a friendship like this.

God did not rescue me out of the pain, He rescued me through the pain!

Only when we see that the way of God's law is absolutely inflexible will we see that God's grace is absolutely indispensable. A high view of the law reminds us that God accepts us on the basis of Christ's perfection, not our progress. Grace, properly understood, is the movement of a holy God toward an unholy people. He doesn't cheapen the law or ease its requirements. He fulfills them in his Son, who then gives his righteousness to us. That's the gospel. Pure and simple.

Christianity is in no way a stoic faith. It fundamentally rejects the "stiff upper lip" school of thought.

I think there is tribalism is a big deal inside of the church, that the church thinks of themselves as a tribe and not a mission.

Death is the operative device that sets us free in Christ - when we die, we truly live.

I've got three kids. I worry about them but the gospel freed me and freed my wife. We are not trying to make our kids think that we're super spiritual or we've got it all together. They see mom and dad being real people. What they hear dad talking about at home is not different from what they see from dad [at church]. That won't guarantee that they'll avoid the whole PK, MK thing. But we are hopefully not contributing to what normally produces that crisis, which is pretending.

Walking with God doesn't lead to God's favor; God's favor leads to walking with God.

Here's one way I can know that I've forgotten the gospel of grace: when your sin bothers me more than my sin.

My job is not to show my children that I'm the man, but to show them that Christ is the man.

Self-righteousness is unavoidable. You can either be a self-righteous Pharisee where you think you are better than everyone else or you can be a self-righteous pagan who thinks you are better than the Pharisee. If you are a self-righteous person, I could become very self-righteous thinking that you're self-righteous and you think you're so good but I know you're bad. I know I'm bad so that makes me better than you.

Christian growth doesn't happen by first behaving better, but by believing better--believi ng in bigger, deeper, brighter ways what Christ has already secured for sinners.

God's acceptance of us cannot be gained by our successes nor forfeited by our failures.

The gospel doesn't just free me from what people think of me, but also from what I think of me.

God loves broken people because broken people are all that there are.